Last Saturday I took delivery of a slightly used Mayhem RTR from an eBay seller (it’s a 1/8th scale, Nitro-powered “Buggy”). Why, do you ask, is a 40-year old man with small children doing buying an expensive toy like this? Answer: I dunno. I’ve always wanted something like this ever since I was a kid. My father-in-law flies model planes - he’s got a real jones for 1/3 scale Piper Cubs - and he’s been pushing gently for me to get involved.
After hearing all the stories of an entire winter of building a new plane and a springtime moment of crashing, I decided to keep any purchased expensive toy safely on the ground.
As I said, I took delivery on Saturday and opened the box, concealing my little-kid-on-Christmas-morning attitude. Studiously I looked over the manual. As a professional computer geek, I know the value of RTFM, especially on expensive toys. Meanwhile the reptillian part of my brain is shouting, “Fire it up!”
That day I went out to get the necessary accessories. Little extras like fuel and a glow igniter. Meanwhile the back of my brain start to wonder if this experience will be like my old Cox string plane days - my fingertip thobs with the memory of the little plastic propeller whipping around and slicing the top off. “Glow plug” is a term with strangely bloody connotations.
Still - I’m a grown up now - or so I think - current purchase not withstanding - so I forge ahead. I add a set of hex-tip screwdrivers, a fuel bottle, a cool neon-green antenna cover and a couple anticipated replacement parts.
A hundred bucks later and I’m ready to go.
'cept I never found the after-run oil
…or an air filter
The oil seems important and the air filter even more so so it’s off to a different hobby store about 15 minutes away. The hobby store that, surprisingly, closes at 5:00 on a Saturday. OK - There’s another Hobbytown in Lakewood. A quick phone call to get directions and I’m off.
This one has the after-run oil and air filters and and infrared thermometer (I know the thermometer wasn’t on the list but it’s cute and comes with an extra battery right there in the box. My wife would understand, right?)
OK - Evening falls, the kids are in bed, it’s too dark outside to work so I’m inside with a small wrench tweaking the steering linkage to straighten the wheels out. The previous owner, rather than aligning the wheels, just added about 70-clicks of trim and called it a day. The buggy was well tuned for turning right at least.I go to bed with visions of little-tiny Nascars in my head.
I wake to the day’s needs - you know - the honey-do list, the kids, the fish tanks that needed set up, etc. 10,000 things to be done with time for only 5,000. The responsible part of my keeps the speed-demon in check until the kids are, once again, in bed and I take the buggy outside.
The previous owner converted it to a pull start (his power starter broke) so I hook up the igniter & yank. No dice. “Great”, says my brain, “It’s the Cox string plane all over again.”
Yank, Yank, Yank, Yank, Yank.
You get the picture. Turns out the car came from Orlando & I live in Denver. About a mile’s-worth of altitude difference. To shorten the story (I know, too late) I get it idling on Tuesday and finally yesterday, Thursday, actually running a bit. I take it to the park that evening while my son plays football and tweak and run a little circle. I tweak again and run a bigger circle. About 15 kids are running after it every time and they’re panting trying to keep up. I run a fast circle and it dies. I do it several more times and every time it dies when the throttle gets past midpoint. Hmm. Reading the Fine Manual suggests that it may be the high throttle so I open it a half turn. Now it won’t start. <dirty words are subvocalized - there’s kids everywhere watching>.
Baby steps, I remind myself, I turn it back a quarter.
Whooo hooo! It runs!
I close the throttle to near-full speed. Whoooooo hoooooo! Yeah!
I turn it back toward myself.
Now - this is a big park - several acres of grass - lots of open space. Almost no trees except at the perimeter. A cute little baby tree is there - about 2 inches at most at the bottom.
I dodge left. I dodge right. The tree matches every move. My new toy is confronting the cousin of Charlie Brown’s kite eating tree.
Suddenly, I need a new lower front suspension arm.
